Asia Pacific|‘Who Is This Stupid God?’ For His Latest Insult, Duterte Aims High

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‘Who Is This Stupid God?’ For His Latest Insult, Duterte Aims High

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President Rodrigo Duterte has been at odds with the Philippines’ powerful Catholic Church, which has actively opposed his war on drugs.CreditCreditErik De Castro/Reuters

By Felipe Villamor

June 26, 2018

MANILA — Disparaging remarks about God by President Rodrigo Duterte have led to his sharpest clash yet with leaders of the Philippines’ politically powerful Roman Catholic Church, who on Tuesday accused him of attacking the beliefs held by the vast majority of the country.

“God has been called insulting names — words we always told you not to say or even write,” Archbishop Socrates Villegas said in a statement released Tuesday that was addressed to members of his archdiocese. “You are even being challenged to leave this church of your birth, the church of your grandparents.”

The archbishop was responding to a speech Friday in which Mr. Duterte cast doubt on the biblical story of creation, asking why God had created Adam and Eve only to let them be tempted and fall from grace.

“Who is this stupid God? This son of a bitch is then really stupid,” Mr. Duterte said. “How can you rationalize a God? Do you believe?”

Such epithets are routine for the tough-talking president, but applying them to God appeared to be a first for him, and the remarks startled even some of his supporters in this highly religious country, which is more than 80 percent Catholic. Mr. Duterte, who said he had stopped going to Mass after his mother died, also said that the notion of original sin was a “very stupid proposition.”

“We pray for his healing and for God’s forgiveness on him, but we must rebuke his errors,” Archbishop Villegas said in his statement, urging Catholics to “stay in the truth of our faith.”

Risa Hontiveros, an opposition senator, said Mr. Duterte’s remarks were meant to distract the public from “the incompetence and corruption plaguing the administration.”

Mr. Duterte has been at odds with the church for some time. Catholic bishops have campaigned against his government’s crackdown on drugs, which has left thousands dead since Mr. Duterte took office two years ago — many of them killed by police officers, others by vigilantes.

The church has offered to protect police officers who testify about such killings, and last year it organized a large rally to protest the deaths of three teenagers who were shot by the police. The outcry over those deaths forced Mr. Duterte to suspend police involvement in the antidrug operations, though it resumed in December.

Mr. Duterte has repeatedly accused the church of hypocrisy, suggesting that many of its priests had affairs with women. After a Philippine priest was gunned down this month — the third killing of a priest since December — Archbishop Villegas urged Mr. Duterte to tone down his criticism of the church, saying it could encourage such attacks, but he refused.

In April, the president said he had ordered the arrest and deportation of an Australian nun, Sister Patricia Fox, who had joined street protests condemning the antidrug killings. The Justice Department nullified the order this month, telling the country’s immigration bureau to review the case.

Mr. Duterte has joked more than once that he intended to start a new religion with himself as the leader, the sole purpose of which would be to create happiness.

Many of Mr. Duterte’s political allies are Protestants, including Senator Manny Pacquiao, the former boxing champion, who is an evangelical Christian. Mr. Duterte also enjoys the backing of the Iglesia Ni Cristo, a Christian sect that is a political force in the country.

On Tuesday, the Philippine Council for Evangelical Churches joined the criticism of Mr. Duterte, calling on the president to “refrain from issuing insulting statements against the Christian faith.”

“History teaches us that religious intolerance can lead to animosity and violent conflict,” said the group, which says it represents about 30,000 evangelical churches in the country.

In a sign that Mr. Duterte hoped to defuse the controversy, his spokesman, Harry Roque, said the government had created a panel to reach out to the Catholic Church in hopes of sorting out their differences.

“We know that there is a separation of the powers of state and church and that there is no need for a dialogue, but the president thought it wise to open our doors to dialogue,” Mr. Roque said Tuesday.

A version of this article appears in print on , on Page A7 of the New York edition with the headline: With Insult, President Aims High In Philippines. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe